


Falling Ashes

by Anonymous



Category: Ashes to Ashes
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-27
Updated: 2015-11-27
Packaged: 2018-05-07 21:58:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5472134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gene ruminates on the problem that is Alex Drake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling Ashes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [unwoundfloors](https://archiveofourown.org/users/unwoundfloors/gifts).



Gene has never understood women. He's never made out otherwise. They're just...foreign to him. He doesn't understand their emotions, their thoughts, their angst over what seem like such insignificant things to him.

But Gene's the sheriff. No man, woman or child has ever slipped under Gene's skin to the extent that he can't think about anything else. That he can't function. That he can't do his bloody  _job_ without wondering what the hell they'll think.

But no woman has ever got under his skin like bloody Bolly Knickers, either.

Gene can’t take it anymore. And neither can Ray, apparently.

“Jeez, Gene! What’s wrong with you lately? All you do is mope!”

For some reason Gene can’t explain, Ray’s yelling and screaming – which seems to come from actual concern, rather than just the man’s egotistic self-absorption – is reaching him like nothing has in days…nothing apart from that stupid movie, which was on TV again that morning.

Gene still doesn’t know how to feel about that. What he does know is that the feelings that the damn thing stirs up in him every time he sees it are becoming stronger and more confusing as time wears on. Gene almost wants to talk to someone about it, but isn’t sure who. The seemingly logical answer to that would be Ray, being the closest to a ‘best friend’ Gene has ever had, but he every time he goes to speak, something inside him locks up like a faulty gear and Gene finds himself unable to talk.

That and Gene assumes that if the whole issue makes him uncomfortable, it would send poor Ray running for the metaphorical hills in terror. Ray, in his own words, “doesn’t do emotion. That shit’s for birds!”

But both Gene and Ray know that that is complete crap – Ray spends his life having uncontrollable, immature emotional outbursts.

“Gene? Are you even listening to me rant and rave?!” Ray snaps irritably, jumping from foot to foot.

“Yes,” Gene replies automatically.

“Would you do us all a favour and just go to the bar or something? Hook up with some floozy for the night?” Ray snaps. Then, his whole demeanor changes, and Gene knows that Ray has had an idea. “Actually,” he says quickly. “Let's go out tonight! You can meet your cheap floozy there!”

The idea doesn’t sound particularly appealing, so Gene is even more confused when he hears himself say, “Sure.”

*****

The trashy nightclub is as overcrowded with dancing drunks of every kind as it usually is, and Gene finds himself oddly comforted by that fact. Alex would probably have smiled at the thought…

That is, if she were at all herself.

“Gene!” Alex shouts. “Get over here!” Her words are slurring slightly, and if the empty bottle of red wine in front of her is any indication, Gene knows that her date has not gone well. Next to her, Ray looks concerned, and to Gene the serious expression on Ray’s face seems almost out of place. “Alex, I think you’ve had enough to drink now,” he says quietly, and again Gene is struck by the strangeness of Ray’s sudden seriousness. It’s almost like maturity, which is odd.

However, the oddest thing about all this is that Gene is noticing all this – he never used to.

Alex’s sudden yelling drags him out of his computations; “I’m fine, Ray!” she slurs irritably. “It’s just…I’m fine, okay!”

“Okay, okay,” Ray says, still remarkably calm considering that Alex almost just hit him in the head in drunken frustration. “Here, have some water,” he suggests, passing her his untouched glass.

Gene looks away. The genuine concern in Ray’s eyes is crushing him. Damn emotions! This is as bad as that stinkin’ head shrinker!

Frustrated, Gene heads for the bar, snapping his order at the overworked barkeeper.

“In just a minute, sir!” the little man squeaks at him. “Have a seat and I will get to you as soon as possible.”

Grumbling, Gene sits down on the stool to his left, and attempts to entertain himself by crushing the no-doubt bacteria-laden bar nuts into the scratched bench.

“No, not tonight, Lucinda. I…I just can’t…” the man to his right says, his velvety voice punctuated by melodrama.

Gene freezes in mid-grind.

“You mean not ever!” a shrill-voiced woman replies angrily. “When are you gonna get over her? She’s dead! And you didn’t even actually get married before she went!”

“But I love her, Lucinda!” he intones dramatically, hands in the air. “To me, she isn’t gone…she lives on in immortal memory! My immortal memory.”

The woman angrily hurls both her drink and a number of colourful words in his direction, before storming off.

Bitch, Gene thinks angrily, even as the place where his heart would be if he were a man with a heart seizes up at the man’s display of overwrought emotion. Looking at him out of the corner of his eye, Gene is surprised to see him slumped over the bar, nothing more than an untouched can of beer in front of him. Does he mean it? Gene finds himself thinking. Does he miss this woman?

Like I miss Alex…?

The realization is like one of the electrical shocks he keeps getting when tending to that crazy car’s engine (which he would swear were a purposeful act of revenge) – short but devastatingly painful.

Suddenly those confusing feelings that have been haunting him for two weeks make sense: he misses Alex.

And Gene is mortified at the thought.

He sits there in dumb shock for a moment, staring vacantly as his internal hardware goes into overdrive, giving him a blinding headache.

“Sir! Sir, please!”

The bar-keeper’s high-pitched voice is beginning to grind Gene’s nerves. Irritably, he glares in the little man’s direction.

“I really think that you should at least have some water, sir!” the bar-keeper squeaks at the other man. “You’re beginning to cause trouble!”

“I don’t want your water!” he sneers. “She cannot have water, and neither shall I!” he states dramatically.

A strange feeling works its way through Gene as he watches this man’s display – the potent mix of embarrassment, pity and, worst of all, tenderness, is beginning to make him feel sick.

Goddamnit, Gene doesn’t want to be a in love! He’s male. He wants cigars and booze and cheap tarts, not want to give flowers and candy and bouquets of puppies and rainbows to some bloody bird who’s more trouble than she’s worth!

Gene has never been more irritated that he can’t just pass out.

There is a worrying rumbling sound as the counter that Gene has been grinding at with his finger for the past several minutes starts to give out under his ministrations. He watches dispassionately as the fissure in the much-abused wood spreads at an alarming rate, particles of skin and bacteria falling into a rapidly deepening abyss.

He has to figure this out. He has to.

He chugs his drink in one go, throwing his head back.

Than, with one last look at Alex, he heads off into the night.


End file.
